Bargaining With Moroccan Vendors & Scary Knees
Trip Start
Sep 29, 2007
1
146
221
Trip End
Ongoing
Where I stayed
Auberge near big Kasbah Hotel & faux nesting storks pizza place
Ait Ben Haddou,
Morocco
Sunday, September 14, 2008
The selling procedure includes engaging you to go into their shop, flattering you with compliments if you are a woman, calling you some name like Fatima or cous cous or other silly thing to mae you laugh, sometimes there is mint tea offered (so they can have more time with you), checking out your appearance (to see if they can see dollar signs in your shoes, watch, sunglasses etc), asking if it is your first time in Morocco (if it is they will hike the price well up knowing you wont know how much to pay)
lads
. Then a string of other questions follow like asking which country you are from (they know how much tourists from each country will pay based on past sales), then will ask how long you will stay in their town (if it is a small town they know they will no doubt see you again and have longer to form a relationship with you and score the sale), they can spot if you are freshmeat because they notice everybody and then if you do buy then they will send a kid messenger out to go down the road and tell their friends / cousins shop owners what you paid and inform if you are easy money or not. This is what we have learned so far anyway, but we are still newbies to the sometimes scary world of Moroccan bargaining. We have just realised that Moroccan men probably do not talk to any women who are not their wives so take the chance to try it on at every opportunity.Prices are set on a daily, even, hourly basis, depending on how much has been sold on a given day (or period of hours). If there are many tourists around prices go higher and bargaining even small amounts off the asking price becomes quite difficult. Most vendors and they prefer clients that don't appear hurried and are willing to take the time to negotiate. It is most often necessary to give reasons why you believe the price should be lower. The reasons you might give are limited only by your imagination and often lead to some very entertaining discussions. Common reasons may include: the price of the item elsewhere or the item not being exactly what you are after
roadside action
. If there is little movement in the price after some time, the best advice is to begin leaving, this often has the result of kick-starting the bidding anew, and if not, it is likely that the merchant is actually unwilling to go further below a given price. Next time the advice we are armed with is that you go in with a price in mind, offer 1/4 of what you want to pay, vendor will offer a lower price, then offer half of what you want to spend, he will again offer lower, then we raise our price to what we wanted to spend and the deal should be done. We are looking forward to giving it a go next time.Because we broke the fast last night with the staff and some other travellers, a Brazilian- Spanish couple, we did not need to eat any dinner, it was on the house. The usual soup, egg, dates combination. We woke up on our rooftop this morning as the sun heated us up like baked spuds in our sleeping bags. Last night we had gone to bed early but i couldnt sleep because their was some Ramadan festivities going on around the town like singing and drumming all over town. The heat is scorchingly hot not long after the sun rises and most people sleep during the day because of it, its only us idiots that walk around in it. It gets to 55 degrees here in Summer and we are just coming out of the Summer season. More tourists will arrive over the next few weeks to Morocco as the temperatures become bearable.Its crazy hot, your lips crack up and skin flakes up in the dry heat.
There are no laundromats here that we have seen because all the women wash the clothing on their rooftops and dry it there too
loaded up donkey
. It dries in twenty minutes. The women stay at home in Morocco as is the culture and do not go to work. We have been doing our laundry on the rooftops too but it would have been handy to cary a plug for the sink and some clothes pegs because all your undies go flying around the roof space that is often peoples living space.This morning Borat got up and made us some killer staunch coffee served in a cute Moroccan tea set then hooked us up with his mate who drove one of the grand taxi collectivos and had agreed to take us to Rissani for 12 dirham each, there are no buses out of here. He wanted to leave immediately but we said we would be having our cigarettes and coffees first, we seem to be getting better at keeping control of situations here. Luckily some Polish travellers, some Berbers and turban wearing men shared the ride making up the six passengers we needed to get the good deal. In Rissani the driver tried it on for us to give him money for our bags but we had already negotiated an all inclusive deal and told him to get lost. We went to the grand taxi stand where an attendant was writing taxi trip information on a chalkboard and lots of people were waiting for taxis to fill up to six cramped passengers and leave. Plus sometimes animals like lambs and chickens get in too. We told the guy that we wanted to go to Er-Rachidia and all of a sudden there was a whole bunch of the waiting men ready to get in with us. We did a 30Dirham deal with him and the packs were allowed to ride on the roofracks
packs on the roof collectivo
. Four stinky men got in with us and we were set for a good drive to the next town.The drive was scenic and interesting with desert landscapes and lots of roadside people action in all the little towns we passed. There were many completely veiled women in the muslim black robes and men working donkeys. Horse and cart is a popular way for people to get around in this area too. We admired crumbling kasbah ruins whilst keepingone eye on the taxi driver to make sure he wasnt nodding off to sleep as he drove. It was the middle of the day, hot and he is not allowed to eat or drink anything because of Ramadan. All good. At the Er-Rachidia bus station Nadine gathered a crowd of ten men around her like bees to honey when she got the Europe Lonely Planet with its tiny chapter and useless map of Morocco out as we tried to find out how to pronounce the name of our destination town that is Ait Ben Haddou. We are skipping Todra Gorge and acting on intuition. It was written wrong on our map and this explains why nobody had heard of it. It is kind of nice to be doing a country without a guide book for a change although we hope we are not missing anything. So women, travellers and no guide book- a poor combination in Morocco. A challenge for us though.
It is amazing how much better you feel after a cold Coca-Cola bottle drank in secret (because of Ramadan), even if you dont like to endorse the Coca-Cola company. After the coke, an hour at the internet cafe, a festy squat toilet break and handing over the 10dirham backpack protection tip or the luggage handler, we were heading away to Quarzazate then on to Ait Ben Haddou...
donkey style
. or were we? We have noticed that it is better to travel by bus overland because in a hire car or plane you miss being close to the people of the country and seeing how they really operate. Always just as buses leave, there seems to be a scuffle or brawl break out or somebody freaking out. Remember the guywith the axe? This time we think someone had snuck onto the bus with no ticket and because the seats are never numbered, had taken someone elses bus seat. Someone standing up in the aisle then got involved because they wanted a seat. Someone was taken off the bus and beaten up then the bus left. Nice one. The bus ride through the Dodes Valley was not as pretty as we imagined it to be but we did see lots of camels wandering the roadside. Uncomfortable bus with no leg room and blowing hot air from the air con vent. Welcome to the desert bus from hell. There was a fancy sign on the side of the bus announcing it to be the Sahara Voyage which kind of made you feel you were on a good bus but it was all words. There was a women breastfeeding a large child behind us so we had to keep our seats upright and the people in front of us had theirs back as is their right. We were squashed. A guy had a go at Nadine for having her knees exposed because the legs are considered private here. Oohhh..... the knees.... scary bits.
We spilled ot at the Quazazate bus station later than expected (5.5 hour trip) and found the only way to get to Ait Be Haddou at night was to take a grand taxi and pay for all six passengers
horse transport
. The 33km journey cost more then our 5hour bus ride but the taxi driver drove all the way back to our hotel to give me my present-from-Don-vintage-carrera-aviator sunglasses in case after they fell outof my bag in the backseat of the taxi. Faith in Moroccans restored and my sunglasses back. Truth be told i have left them behind, dropped them and lost them about six times now and they always come back. Don has definitely put a curse on them. I fumbled around pretending that i couldnt see without them so the driver would think he has done a really good deed as all good Ramadan Moroccans are supposed to and gave him no tip because all i had was a 100 dirham note. I did put him on my gratitude list that night because the sun is crazy bright here and i fear i would either burn my eyeballs or risk eye contact with Moroccan men without them.We checked into a nice hotel next to a giat Kasbah Hotel where film crews are staying and ate our own picnic of fresh produce on sandwichs made by Nadine. We can make out the outline of the city in the dark and cant wait till sunrise to see it in all its glory. Joy.
We still havent found a magic lying carpet or genie lamp. We have our three wishes ready though. Roast dinner with family, a night in at the Tugun penthouse watching DVDs and a picnic with our friends.
